New "Simple" Dichotomous Key

I made a new, improved simple key for tree identification. It's geared to narrow down some of the common types of trees in Vermont, in a simple, kid-friendly way. Print off a copy, try it out, and let me know what you think! If you have trouble with it, let me know and I can help you out.

Then, once you get good at using the simple dichotomous key, you can continue to improve you tree identification skills with a more detailed key. There are many available in book form and online, I would suggest trying a few out to see what style works best for you.

Happy identifying!
~Lisa

Colchester Camp

This week I ran a "From the Ground Up" program in Colchester. The themes were similar to the one I ran in Milton last month, but this program was different based on the places we were able to hike, the particular interests of the kids involved, and the things we saw. For example, in this camp we discussed some orienteering and even measured our individual pace length for measuring distances in the woods.

On our way out of the woods we found some hula hoops abandoned on the playground

We spent the first two days at one site, talking about soil, groundwater, bedrock, plants, trees, some animals, and (of course) playing games. Then the third and fourth days we were at a second site where we had access to a different type of forest as well as a tiny part of Colchester bog (I posed about this site before, read about it here.) We saw several carnivorous pitcher plants, as well as cotton grass and peat moss, plants very specific to bog environments. We also found a plant we all recognized very easily. I painstakingly identified, and was the first to eat and confirm, wild blueberries! Once we were sure, we all got to chow down. There were other berries around, so we were all careful to notice the difference and only pick the right ones.

Picking blueberries

These children really picked up on tree identification, which I appreciated because it's one of my favorite parts to talk about. After only one day teaching different types of trees, the next day they came in pointing out ones they remembered. "Look, there's a white pine. And that one's a hemlock!" I barely had to use the dichotomous key with them. But I wanted them to see how to use one, and they really found it interesting.

My new, improved dichotomous key. Now with more trees!

Identifying a moose (striped) maple with the dichotomous key.

The distinct striped bark and big, three-lobed leaves of the moose maple.

As when I was teaching camp in California, the kids' favorite game to play was a game teaching strategies animals might use in the wild to avoid being caught by predators (or to catch their prey.) These kids decided to call it "Snake Eye" since snakes rely on other senses besides sight, such as hearing and scent, since their eyes are not always very strong. In the game, one player is blindfolded and has to "catch" others trying to sneak up on them only using their hearing.

 Listening...

 Nope, not there...

 Ahh, that's the ticket!

 Listening...

 Sneaking...

Sneaking...

Contrary to the way this photo looks, it was actually taken 

moments before she caught him.

We played this game in various places so we could see how the terrain affected the strategies each person used. We also discussed real-world applications of these strategies for animals.

I got some great photos of the students demonstrating a principle during our astronomy lesson on the last day. We discussed how since the moon takes 28 days to rotate on its axis as well as 28 days to revolve around the Earth, the same side is always facing the Earth. As we watch the phases of the moon over a month, we are seeing one day happen on that side of the moon.

 The pillow is to show the side of the moon facing us is denser than the other

 Rotating and revolving, moon around Earth, Earth around sun.

 Switching up the roles to give everyone a turn. We were all very dizzy!

 Drawing our own constellations on a star map

Still a favorite of all the kids, I brought my pet baby corn snake for everyone to learn about and choose to touch or hold (or not.) Everyone in this group was really excited to hold Ned.

And now for the Ned glamour shots:

Today a girl said to me "This is the best week of my life!" (apparently not only because of nature camp, but because she gets to go to the drive-in movies over the weekend.) And that right there is what keeps me doing the work I do!

After School: Animals

In our "From the Ground Up" after school program, we've talked about 1) the soil and how it lays foundation for plants, 2) the plants themselves, and now 3) we're talking about what the plants do for animals and vice-versa.

We saw standing dead trees ("snags") and discussed how they provide different habitat for animals than fallen dead trees (for example, birds make their homes in cavities on snags.) 

We talked about detritus (matter that is no longer living) and the organisms that break that down. This really shows that worms and fungi are crucial to our ecosystems, because otherwise the nutrients locked away in detritus wouldn't be made available for new plants.

We looked for wildlife signs (and frogs) in this stream.

We identified some mast trees (trees that produce food for animals, such as white pine cones or beech nuts.) And once we did this, we had pretty much all the vocabulary to play the wildlife BINGO game I designed for just this occasion!

Looking for items on their cards

We did have to discuss what "invertebrate" meant, and what examples of behavior we saw count as defense mechanisms. Which was perfect because the point of this activity was to raise questions and creative ideas. For example, the little lady used herself to fill the categories of omnivore, two-legged animal, and mammal. 

She asked for a hard surface to write on,

I told her where to find one.

At one point the little lady pointed at me and said "I see a two-legged mammal right there!" At which her friend pointed at both of us, saying "I see two!" Our third friend, who had wandered off a bit looking for snags, called back "I see three, and they're laughing like crazy people!"

As we walked back to the school all three of the girls looked for a black birch tree so they could chew on the end of a twig and taste the sweet wintergreen like we did last week.

After School: Plants

For my after school program this week we took a good look at the plants around us. One of my girls taught us all she knows about ferns (she is very astute!) We looked at the repeating patterns in the fronds, how each segment looks like a miniature of the whole fern itself. And we saw the curled fiddleheads of some young ferns, but none were the right type to eat (you don't want to eat the fuzzy ones!)

(Not one of my personal photos, I got excited talking with the girls 

and forgot to take out my camera...)

Then we moved up to the trees. I made up a simplified dichotomous key to try out and the girls seemed to really enjoy using it. I explained to them that it's like a "Choose your own adventure" book. If you see a certain characteristic on a tree, you move to a certain question which eventually leads you to the name of the tree you're most likely looking at (the ending of the adventure you chose!)

A fun dichotomous key!

This is a great activity for the 8-9 year olds I'm working with in this group. As for the actual key itself that I made, I'm planning on making some edits to it before I use it again. I realize it'd be easier for children if there are more action verbs at the beginning of each choice:

• LOOK at the branch, is it...
• SCRATCH and SNIFF the twig, does it smell like wintergreen? (Then it is black or yellow birch! I'd have to have it lead to a question about the color of the bark.)

The hour went by really quickly, I could talk trees all day! The girls particularly liked learning about the black birch and cherry trees because of their distinctive smells (a cherry twig will smell a bit almondy and I think it smells yucky). We even peeled back the bark and tasted the birch, it was delicious! Coming out of the woods each girl told me her favorite tree. One said moose maple, the second birch, and the third beech. I guess the trees we saw made quite an impression!

Next Monday we're going to talk about the animals we can find in the woods at our school.

Mount Philo

On Saturday my lovely friend and I took her children for their first hike up a mountain. We chose Mount Philo, since it would not be too hard for the children and, although it is small, it has lovely views.

As we gamboled through the woods, I was pleased to hear the children chattering about the plants around them. The little lady saw a dead tree with many holes in it and proclaimed it a snag. She remembered from our last hike that "Woodpeckers make the holes." Why? "To find insects." What happens to the holes when they are done? "Other animals move in." Not bad for 6 months later!

Near the beginning of the hike we came across such a beautiful specimen of ash, I'll admit I got over-excited. I love ashes, how they shoot up so straight and tall right through the rest of the trees until the top is invisible behind the canopy. The bark is so distinctive with its oblong hexagonal diamonds.

Diamonds!

Thus, inadvertently, this was my pet tree for this hike. We also saw some white pines, which had not been forgotten from last time either. The young gentleman and the little lady counted out the needles for me, 5 per bundle, just like I promised.

This hike was pretty magical in terms of things to see. We discovered fairy homes, tree scars and burls, rocks that had been moved by glaciers, and various types of mushrooms speckled everywhere.

A fairy home

We discussed how sometimes we see a lot of one type of mushroom spread out over an area. It may look like individual mushrooms, but actually they are connected by root-like mycelia that run under their feet. After all my talk of not overwhelming the children with information, here I am discussing glacial erratics and mycelial mats! Luckily for me, the little lady ate it up (though not literally, since the mushrooms were toxic) and the young gentleman was content to listen while he faced the obstacles of roots and rocks our long-legged bodies barely registered.

View of Lake Champlain from the overlook

The children were amazing, never complaining, always pushing toward their goal of reaching the top. And we were all rewarded when we got there, as you can see. Since the children did so well, we told them we want to hike another mountain. We want to do Snake Mountain next (slightly larger than Philo, but the children proved themselves!)

Showing the children the next mountain we'll hike, Snake Mountain. Wait, hold on...

that one!

On the way down we found some patches of jewelweed, otherwise known as touch-me-not. I'd shown the kids this plant before, so they were very excited.

Pale jewelweed

For your information, not only are the leaves good for insect bites and poison ivy, but the mature seed pods burst to the touch, shooting seeds like they were spring-loaded! It happens to be the right time of year, and there were plenty of good, ripe, bean-looking pods.

"I love exploding touch-me-not!" ~The little lady

An Early Spring Day

I am lucky to live near some diverse natural areas. One of these is a bog which you can walk into via a boardwalk and see some interesting carnivorous plants. I went out there one day this spring with my friend and her children.

On the hike in, through the woods, I chose one or two plants to point out to the kids. I chose ones I knew were interesting and would be memorable for specific reasons. Take the example of white pine. The needles are much different from any other evergreen in the area, long and thin, so it would be easy for them to recognize. Also the kids could enjoy counting off the 5 needles per bunch that identify white pine from the other pines.

Counting needles with the children

I chose to use only one or maybe two trees as an example in order to give the kids a taste of tree identification without overwhelming them, or having them become bored with the idea. As we walked through the forest I was able to point to white pines and say "What kind of tree is this?". The children would run up to count bunches in order to be sure before informing me it was their new friend the white pine. They were so excited to know this and had such satisfaction in exhibiting their new skills, they will remember that and want to learn the next tree when we go hiking again.

On the boardwalk

Once we got to the bog I got to teach the kids about carnivorous plants and why some plants need to get their nutrients from food, like we do, rather than soil like other plants. As you can see it was still early spring with a lot of dormant plants, but we did get to see several lovely pitcher plants. The children really enjoyed it, they were so psyched about the nature walk they asked us to take them to another park before going home.

On our second adventure of the day we walked through the woods to a beach on the lake, which was beautiful and still slightly iced over. Again, I chose one vocabulary word to bring home. When the little lady pointed out a standing dead tree, I let her know she could call it a "snag" and how important it was for wildlife. Later on the hike she saw another, "What's this, it's a sn...what's the word?" After that first reminder she had it down and was pointing out every snag she found.

Then we found a big sheet of birch paper and made it the rest of the way back jumping over residual snowbanks!